


gotta find my corner of the sky

by MajorinMonster



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorinMonster/pseuds/MajorinMonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Winter Soldier saves himself and discovers some truths along the road.</p><p>Or, the one where bananas just don't cut it anymore.</p><p>Only in the AOS fandom tag because in later chapters there's a lot of crossover with the Tahiti plot, but no AOS specific characters have appeared at this point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thunder comes after Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is unfamiliar with the banana thing, as I understand it, and I might have some details wrong or have caught the wrong end of the stick but apparently there was a banana plague sometime between WW2 and present day, wiping out the type of banana that Steve and Bucky would have had and replacing it with what we have now which isn't as sweet. Also it's really fun to type the word banana, though i'm not sure why. As always I'm larakickasscroft on tumblr, or imasuperqueero, which is my new blog for superheroes and queer characters either in canon or fanon. Title from Corner of the Sky -Pippin.

Before he was the Winter Soldier he was an asset. A weapon.

Before he was a weapon he was an experiment.

Before he was an experiment he was…he doesn’t remember. All he knows is that he has always belonged to someone or some company.

But belonging, even in the sense of being an item to be owned, has at least always left him with a sense of purpose. There was always a mission. He's never woken up on his own before, never been in the bunker without someone present to tell him what to do or what he did wrong. It's dark, as usual, with a solitary lamp in the corner, and no windows. The air is chilled but he doesn't really feel it. He stands in the room for twelve hours, prowling the edges like a panther in a cage, growing hungry and thirsty. It takes that long for him to realize that no one is coming anytime soon. Survival instincts alone push him to leave, to find the mess hall and scavenge for a warm water bottle and a can of chicken noodle soup. There is fruit on the corner and it looks mostly ripe. The Winter Soldier picks up a banana, turns it over in his hands and peels it.

He doesn't notice something is wrong until after the forth bite. It's not right. Not like he expected  it to be, which doesn't make sense because he doesn't recall ever eating a banana that left such an impression on him that he'd hold it up as the pinnacle of all banana-kind. He doesn’t remember eating any kind of banana. He shrugs it off, finishes the rest and leaves the peel in the bin. He drinks his water and waits. It takes another twelve hours for him to realize that no one is coming, period. After that, he hesitates. He is unused to this feeling, hesitation, and he doesn't like it. It bugs him enough that he gives in, assumes the normal exit behaviour he's been taught and grabs a set of car keys from the bench near the door. He doesn't remember where he is, doesn't know of any cities or towns nearby. He isn't sure why. It's a strange thing to forget, since it is generally where he lives. Not a home, but the closest thing he's ever had.

Still, he remembers how to drive.

The first town he reaches appears on the horizon ten minutes after sunrise. He sits in the car until the first shops open. He buys a newspaper and more food with money he stole from a man who had crashed into him in a drunken stupor as he left the car. The newspaper tells him it is 2007 and he feels like it should shock him. It doesn't. He starts the car, pulling out and onto the road again. There is a little voice in the corner of the darkest part of his mind telling him to stay, to wait for orders. There is another voice, louder, urging him to leave. He justifies leaving by telling himself he is looking for his superiors. The louder voice laughs, tells him _keep on kidding yourself, pal_. He can’t deny he is curious, though it is something they have tried to beat out of him before. He doesn’t remember ever being away from the bunker without orders or a superior to guide him.

He’s the Winter Soldier, he reasons with himself, if there is anyone in this world who can look after themselves, surely it’s him.

It's surprisingly easy to adjust.  He finds another place, bigger and busier, with an airport, three movie theatres and several grocery stores. He tells himself the first time someone comes looking for him he'll go willingly.

It's a lie. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to lie to himself. He doesn’t really know why he doesn’t want to go back, apart from the curiosity he’s never had a complaint.

_That’s wrong_ , a quiet voice in his head points out, _you don’t exactly enjoy being beat half to death_.

_I’m an asset_ , he tells himself.

_You’re human. A person_ , the voice answers. He pushes it away.

***

It's been two months. He has a job, working with a sweet girl called Anika in a local wal-mart. She wears a Hijab the colour of the sun and tells him stupid puns. He likes her. She even offers to help find him an apartment, but he shies away, too suspicious of everyone around him to make any real connections. He finds something on his own. It’s small but he can’t deny the sense of pride he feels when he thinks about it. The bed is set up the way he likes it, not the way Hydra have always taught him. The dishes get done when he wants to do them and he eats whatever he likes though whenever he tries bananas he feels the same sting of betrayal. Maybe he’s coming undone, he’s never felt angry at a fruit before and surely it can’t be normal to expect something you don’t remember ever having in the first place.

It’s a minor thing though, and eventually he just gives us on the yellow fruit, preferring mango instead. He’s examining mangos when the shiver down his spine tells him that something is off. He notices the men as soon as they enter the shop though they don’t see him, heading for the counter instead. Before he knows quite what he’s doing he’s through the back door, walking as calmly as possible around the side of the building, waiting to run until he knows he’s out of the line of sight of the shop. He makes it to his stash in ten minutes, shoving aside a dumpster to get to the fake manhole cover underneath it. He has cash, a pass port and a bag of clothes and within seconds he’s making his way to the airport. The two voices in his head are arguing again but he pushes them to the side and for once he tries to focus on what he wants, what he needs. Already he misses the solitude of his own apartment, misses the sheets he bought just last week and it’s a stupid thing to be upset about, he tells himself, but they were his. His own things he bought with money he earns.

He can start over again. He’s good at that, wiping the slate clean and finding another mission. He’d been getting too comfortable anyway; he’d stopped digging into his past and started settling in. Starting again will change that, give him more control, it makes his heart beat fast just to think about fitting in and living out the rest of his days in a quiet apartment but he knows what he has to do. Maybe afterwards he would get a cat. Or a snake.

Probably not a snake.

He makes it to the airport, grabs a flight to New York, JFK because it’s big and easy to get lost. Easy to lose someone, even. The flight is boring. He spends most of it considering the technology that allows his arm to pass through security undetected or watching out of the window is case they send a jet after him.

He was right to choose JFK. There is a parade two streets away, bright blues and reds streaming in the shape of balloons and confetti. He watches, bemused as two young girls run past, each with a plastic shield on their arm. He half turns, lifts a foot to walk away but before he goes more than a step he’s hit with an awful sense of nausea. His brain feels vaguely like it’s spinning in his skull. He pushes through it, nothing if not determined and by the time he finds a slightly quieter ally he at least feels like he can breathe without exploding.

There are memories in his head. Memories he knows he’s never seen before so they can’t possibly be his. But he’s in them, his face in a mirror, head thrown back as he laughs at something a tall, blond man just said. He’s glancing into the window of a car, following the same man, keeping to the shadows. The memories keep coming but there is no sense of emotion. They don’t feel like his, it’s more like he’s watching someone else experience them. The sense of disconnection hits him hard enough to force him away from the wall he hadn’t even realised he’d been leaning against.

He probably stands there for too long. He knows several people stop at the mouth of the ally and stare at him. Damn Americans, he thinks, glaring, fighting the urge to kill those who see his face. He ignores that fact that the men in his head were American; the man who looked like him was American, and abruptly turns away.  He’s always preferred methods with low civilian casualties, when they were available, and any who saw him today are more likely to forget than they are to remember. _Anika would remember_ , he winces, but she is smart and so she’ll be safe. He tells himself this, knows it to be true. Hydra may ask their questions but they wouldn’t risk hurting someone as loved by the community as Anika, there would be too many questions asked and it wasn’t like she knows that much about him anyway, not even where his apartment is.

He pushes thoughts of the girl out of his head and focuses on the newly acquired memories. Even without an emotional connection he knows he needs to find out more, but not like this, he’s hungry, tired and there’s an ache in his gut that, if he didn’t know better, he would call loss. He does the only thing he knows how to do in a situation like this. He digs deeper into his training, stay low until we find you, he remembers someone saying. Well that isn’t an option. The only option available that keeps him away from Hydra and gives him the answers he needs is to find out who the blond man from his memories was, who the person who looks like him was. It means he’ll need a job, an apartment, something stable while he looks. He can get money, ID isn’t an issue. The Winter Soldier looks to the sky, unaware of the small smile that has took hold of his mouth.

He has a new mission.


	2. Nightingales have their song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's 2011.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in Bucky's world it's been a few years since the last chapter and I tried to make Bucky more...amusing, since he's had time to settle into himself. Also i just can't let the banana thing go. it's like 3am and this isn't proofread but i wanted to get it out. i'll do a double check in the morning and fix things.

It’s 2011 and the Winter Soldier knows his name. He knows a lot more than that but his name will always come at the top of the list when he thinks about everything that’s important. He will never forget his name again.

He is Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes.

His best friend was Steve Rogers, known more commonly as Captain America. And he is dead. He thinks it’s funny (but not the laughing kind of funny), that his pseudonym is that of a soldier and Steve a captain. Everything always ties back to war. He can’t escape it in his nightmares, he can’t escape it in the streets, all he hears about on the TV is war. The media is still talking about goddamned Stark and how he’s staying away from the weapons trade for good it seems.

The Winter Soldier doesn’t care.

Bucky does.

Bucky remembers Howard Stark, thinks maybe he should introduce himself to his son. But all it takes is a flash of the night he’d killed them and the thought dies in the back of his mind. It’s taken a while to get used to the idea that he can’t blame himself for everything he did. He doesn’t know how long he held out before Zola turned him but he knows he gave a good fight, for however long he was able. He tries not to blame himself. He’s speaking to a therapist, though he uses an alias and a fake story about being in Afghanistan. It helps, though it might help more if he told her the truth.

He brushes the idea away, focuses on the pancakes before they burn. Pancakes, he has learnt, go with everything. Everything except bananas. He thinks maybe he should drop the whole banana debate. It’s been years since the initial banana-revelation and still he isn’t sure why he expects something different every time he tries one from a different store (he’s never going to tell anyone this but he keeps a list of places with disappointing bananas. He has a problem, _okay_?).

The apartment he lives in now is nice. It’s in the middle of Manhattan and a view of the coffee shop he works at. It’s similar to the one he had shared with Steve, back before the war had dragged them out of it. Sometimes he wonders if he should try to find it, or maybe just google it (because that’s a thing he does now, the winter soldier _googles_ ) but in the end he figures he thinks about Steve way too much as it is, he doesn’t need to know if their old place has been bulldozed.

He’s in his kitchen, minding his own business when the aliens attack. Now, he’s seen Independence Day (and developed something of a crush-if the winter soldier admitted to crushes-on Will Smith) and this invasion doesn’t happen anything like the fictional one on TV. It’s sudden, with no warning. There is no great shadowing space ship, just a hell of a mass of people screaming and weird flying creatures.

Maybe it’s time to come out of retirement, Bucky contemplates his burnt pancakes. This isn’t his fight though and he won’t do anything that puts him in the sights of Hydra. Bucky Barnes would have helped in a heart-beat. The winter soldier has more self-preservation than that. So he makes more pancakes. He turns on his TV and stares at the news, watches as people die and tries his hardest to fight that hero urge inside his chest, the cavern that widens every time another person screams outside of his apartment.

He lasts five minutes. The pancakes go cold on the side as he throws on some semblance of a disguise, hoping that Hydra will be one of the targets the aliens decide to spontaneously blow up. Maybe today is the day he gets lucky. Or maybe not, he sighs mentally as the moment he steps out of his apartment his bike blows up.

It’s not like it was a fantastic bike, but it was his and Bucky has found he is immensely protective of things that are his. Maybe it goes back to looking out for Steve, or maybe it’s left over from not having anything for himself when he was with Hydra. Whatever the reason priority number one just became ‘get revenge’ and he’s moving into a crouch behind the low wall that runs around the apartment block, taking in the chaos.

“Just like old times,” Bucky shakes his head, climbs gracefully to his feet once he’s had an eye full and launches into battle mode.

The next few hours is a blur. Mostly he remembers that he kicked ass, but also that he got his ass kicked and as the stream of aliens comes to a leaky end Bucky ends up sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily and staring up at the sky that had, only moments ago, been an open worm hole. The ground is even relatively comfortable and he decides to stay there for a few more minutes, just in time for his super healing to kick in and give him a much needed jump start. In the back of his mind he hopes Stark survived the fall. He’d been close enough to see the Hulk catch him but not to see if he had still been breathing.

“Hang on guys,” He hears somewhere to his left. He contemplates turning his head but in the end he really is just too lazy.

“Hey,” The voice is closer now and kind of familiar. Bucky peers up as something blocks out the sun, one eye half covered with the half-hearted mask he’d shoved on before leaving the apartment, “You all good buddy?”

“Oh shit,” Bucky’s eyes meet Captain America’s and for a second Bucky feels such an intense jolt of vertigo he's pretty sure he might fall off of the floor. He bolts to his feet and rolls away, crouching instinctively. The man with Steve’s face is watching him carefully, having taken a careful step back when Bucky panicked.

“You need me to call anyone?”

“Ahh,” Bucky stares some more, eyes drinking him in. There’s no way this is Steve, not his Steve. His Steve is dead. And yet he's a carbon copy, only with more dirt on his face than the last time Bucky had seen him. He moves to pull his own mask off just to see if the other man recognizes him as anyone important, before he has a chance someone comes up behind the captain. He recognizes Natalia the second he sees her and as soon as she sees his arm there is a gun pointed between his eyes.

“This is awkward,” Bucky scratches his chin, unsure if he should laugh or cry and going for the middle ground of stating the obvious. The Steve look-a-like is staring between them with barely concealed curiosity.

“Steve,” Natalia says quietly, “Step back,” Her aim is as steady as always.

“Hey, I could say the same thing about you,” Bucky frowns at her, slightly offended but mostly confused. Natalia ignores him, waits for Steve to move back and jabs the gun closer to his face.

“Who sent you?”

Bucky stares down the barrel and contemplates his life choices. The next time it comes down to pancakes or life-threatening aliens he’s pretty sure he’s gonna stick to the pancakes.


	3. WWWSD, or the one where will smith is jesus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was going to be 3/3 but I've decided I want to do a little follow up work with what happens afterwards and then go from there. Enjoy!

“Will Smith would know what to do,” Bucky says in Russian. Natalia’s glare darkens, as if she thinks he’s trying to get some kind of code to her when really he’s just still lamenting the alien invasion sans one Will Smith. Maybe he should get that as a tattoo, like what would Jesus do, just replacing Jesus with Will Smith.

He takes a moment to consider that maybe he shouldn’t be thinking of tattoos and movie stars when there’s a gun pointed at his head.

“This is all a big misunderstanding,” Bucky tries to be innocent but he wouldn’t know innocence if it kicked him in the face, even before what Hydra did. Sighing heavily, he slowly raises his hands above his head. After all he’s been through today he really doesn’t feel like getting shot. Not that there are days when he feels otherwise.

“Speak English,” Natalia commands, though he knows she understands every word he says.

“But this is so fun,” Bucky deadpans, trying not to smile too much. He feels that in this situation, smiling may give Natalia the wrong idea. Then again moving too much, breathing too heavily and blinking rapidly would also probably give her the wrong idea so really he’s probably screwed either way.

“Natasha, what exactly is going on here?” Steve is looking uneasy; he obviously has no idea who the Winter Soldier is. But maybe that’s a good thing.

“So you go by Natasha now?” Bucky switches to English finally and Natalia relaxes a tiny, tiny amount.

“Yes,” She hasn’t taken her eyes off of him, “What do you go by?”

He could say Bucky, and give it all away but Captain America is already looking a little more uneasy, like he recognises Bucky’s Brooklyn accent but he can’t quite place why.

“James,” He settles on, “I’m James.” Maybe it’s guilt that stops him from revealing his full name, or maybe he just wants a little more control over the situation than he currently has. The rest of Natalia’s group have gathered. He recognises Stark, and Hawkeye. Thor too and the Hulk though the only time’s he’s seen them have been on TV.

“We got a problem?” Hawkeye asks quietly, the closest to Natalia with his bow half drawn.

“Don’t know,”

“No,”

Bucky and Natalia speak at the same time, then send each other annoyed glares.

“Can someone please just explain what’s going on?” Steve has the same tone of voice he had the last time Bucky had tried to make him ride the roller coaster at Coney Island. It makes his heart jolt and suddenly guilt and control seem like minor issues when his best friend (most probably his best friend, see also: Aliens, robots, time travelling tardis) is standing right in front of him.

“Ahh fuck it,” Bucky throws caution to the wind and then, very carefully so as not to upset the Black Widow, he pulls off his mask, “In for a penny, in for a pound. Does that saying even work for Americans? You guys know what a penny is right?”

Bucky has enough time to wish they’d been in the Wild West or something so there could be a few tumble weeds passing by before Steve moves, very clearly stepping in front of the gun Natalia is still aiming at him, arm unwavering as always.

“Steve,” Natalia’s eyes widen and she moves to drag him backwards but Stark acts faster, leaning over to whisper something in her ear. Bucky isn’t sure what it is but he can take a good guess. Stark is staring between Steve and Bucky like they’re at the cinema and about to watch a film he just has to see. _He knows who I am then,_ Bucky acknowledges, _probably read the files, maybe Howard kept photos, not to self, let’s not tell him why his parents are dead while he’s in the armour_. The metal was obviously stained and damaged but Bucky had little doubt that it was the only one he had and suspected each one he made was probably more deadly than the last.

“How?”

It’s at that point when Bucky’s mind catches up with him and he realises he should probably be paying attention to Steve, who is still staring at him like the world has stopped turning and only Bucky knows why. _Now,_ Bucky thinks, _how to approach this delicately_.

“You people are bad at asking questions,” Yes, that works, “I could ask you the same thing!” So delicate. Bucky is giving himself a headache and Steve does not look impressed or amused.

“Don’t let it freak you out that I’m coping so well with this, really, my mind might actually explode any second now, but in the middle of the street surrounded by dead bodies may not be the most opportune of places to discuss this, amiright?” Bucky winces internally, _wow I am really bad at this_ , he thinks. It’s the truth though. His heart has barely slowed down since he first recognised Steve, he can feel his pulse in his throat and his mouth is as dry as his wit. He thinks briefly there should be more hugging.

He can tell that Steve feels the same. Bucky recognises all the signs of Steve wanting a hug from when they were children and Steve was missing his mother. He doesn’t quite trust this to be real though, and he isn’t going to hug something that isn’t-

Ooof!

“Ah,” Bucky clears his throat and pats Steve’s back awkwardly. So much for the holding off on hugs. Natalia hasn’t lowered her weapon, though he can tell Stark has been trying to convince her to. The whole group is just kind of staring at them. Thor is even examining his hammer, trying, it seems, to give them some semblance of privacy. It’s awkward as hell. He can feel it the moment Steve starts to pull away and it’s like the floor is moving out from under him, he’s falling through a darkness he’s only seen in his nightmares.

He clings tighter, arms that had been hanging kind of limply now wrapped firmly around the other man’s back, face buried between his neck and shoulder. It doesn’t take long to realise he’s shaking.

“I thought you were dead,” He whispers, fingers digging into Steve’s back, his metal hand clenched so hard around the material of Steve’s uniform that Bucky wonders if he’ll be able to let go.

“I thought you were smaller,” Steve giggle-snorts into the side of his cheek where he’s pressed his own face and suddenly they’re both laughing hysterically.

“Well this is unexpected,” Stark comments, holding up a phone and, Bucky thinks, recording the moment, “I mean-“

“Shut up Stark,” Hawkeye shoves at his teammates shoulder, looking a lot more relaxed than he had done. Natalia finally lowers her gun, though it stays in her hands. She’s watching them; Bucky doesn’t quite recognise the look on her face, though he can guess the emotion. He’s never seen her looking so unsure before, so out of her element.

“Come back to my apartment?” Steve asks without pulling away. Bucky reluctantly pulls back slightly.

“No,” He carries on through Steve’s wince, “Whoever you’re working for will have it bugged. Come back to mine instead?”

“Maybe that’s not a good idea,” Banner jumps in hesitantly, “No offence, but we don’t know you, and from how tense Natasha is right now she obviously doesn’t trust you so I’m not sure Steve should be leaving with you,”

“Well that’s not your call,” Steve says, half turning to address them while still keeping Bucky in his sights.

“It’s not yours either,” Natalia slides her gun into its holster and folds her arms, “You’re compromised,”

“What do you expect?” Stark snorts, “Of course he’s compromised, hey-keep the dirty looks to yourself Romonoff, you know as well as I do he’s never gonna listen, now please, can we perhaps _remember I died_? I thought we were getting Shawarma?”

“It’s not that great,” Bucky shrugs, “I suggest Thai, or maybe Sushi, pancakes are good too,”

“Really? Sushi?” Stark raises his eyebrows and tilts his head, “Didn’t think you’d be for the dead fish and all being as your pal Steve here was pretty much an ocean dweller for 70 years,”

“What?”

“It’s a long story,” Steve rubs the back of his neck, cringing slightly. Bucky narrows his eyes but lets it pass for now, “And really Stark, your near death experience must have killed any sense of humour that you had. The old age pensioner jokes were bad enough but now you’re moving onto fish jokes?”

“I’m offended,” Stark slaps a metal hand against his metal chest, “There was nothing ‘near death’ about it, JARVIS says I wasn’t breathing, so there,”

“We’re surrounded by children,” Bucky hears Natalia hiss at Hawkeye and he grins to himself, exchanging a surprisingly fond look with Banner.

“I’m going back with Bucky, you can do what you want,” Steve taps his pocket, “I have my phone on me if you need me,”

“You know how to work a phone?” Hawkeye peers at Steve around Natalia’s back, “Don’t tell me you can google,”

“ _Goodbye_ ,”

Bucky can feel five pair of eyes burning into their backs as they walk away and he’s 80% sure that at least one of them will follow them but that’s the least of his worries at the moment. He’s pretty sure his apartment will still smell of burnt pancakes and he thinks he might have left his underwear on the floor of the bathroom.

“You look worried,” Steve observes, walking close enough that their arms brush with each step.

“Not worried, not really,” Bucky glances at him, “Nervous, I guess,”

“Nothing to be nervous about. We’ve seen each other at our worst and at our best. Til the end of the line, remember?”

“Yeah,” If Bucky sounds a little choked up Steve doesn’t mention it, but he does reach over and take Bucky’s hand, squeezing gently as they lean into each other a little more, “Let’s go home,”

"So hey, do you notice anything different about the bananas?"

"Oh my god do _not_ get me started."


	4. the one where bucky is really bad at protecting people

Three months later

“We could really use you in the Avengers,” Steve coaxed, placing a plate of lasagne down on the table in front of Bucky. They’d barely left either other’s sides since they’d found each other again and taking turns to make dinner was something they did every night Steve wasn’t introducing Bucky to his favourite New York take outs (Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell Steve’s he’d been in New York for long enough to know the best take outs. The guys at Pizza Palace were practically his best friends by now).

“You have both a master assassin and a sniper,” Bucky shovelled a fork full of pasta into his mouth, talking around his food. Steve grimaced and Bucky stuck his tongue out.

“We don’t have a Bucky,”

“How perceptive,” Bucky swallowed and frowned at Steve, “You don’t need me,”

“It’s not about need it’s about want, but you’re wrong we do need you.” Steve handed a napkin to Bucky when he spilled tomato sauce on the table top, “You’d be so good,”

“Somehow I doubt the government would want a killer on the team,”

“What do you think I did in the war? Thread daisies?”

“Steve,”

“No. Look if you really don’t want to join then I’ll leave it alone but don’t stay away because of some misguided sense of morality. Natasha was with the KGB, you know that as well as anyone, Clint wasn’t always a SHIELD agent, Tony was in the weapons business and Hulk has flattened more buildings than a bulldozer.” Steve snorted, “We’re the Avengers, not the saints,”

“You’re not a saint? Are you kidding me? My whole life has been a lie!” Bucky swooned dramatically, fluttering his eye lashes and making distressed noises.

Steve threw a piece of bread at him.

“Hey!” Bucky caught it mid-air and stuffed it into his mouth, “You’re a crap shot pal,”

“Jerk,” Steve sniffed and turned away but not far enough that it hid the smile that overtook his face. Bucky felt himself smiling along, dragged along in Steve’s gravitational pull.

“Not now,” Bucky pulled himself out of his Steve-centred thoughts, “I’m not ready,”

“Ok.” Steve said immediately, nodding, “If you ever are, let me know,” He speared a forkful of lasagne and glanced back at Bucky, “Did you convince Tony to look into the banana thing?”

“He scoffed at me. Scoffed, Steve. At me. It’s like he doesn’t think the Banana issue is, you know, an _issue_ ,”

“Huh,” Steve tilted his head, “I’d have thought he’d be all over this mystery,”

“He said, and I quote ‘if this is your definition of a problem we’re going to have some issues,’ so I stole his Iron Man helmet and left,”

“Oh, well-wait, what?”

“It’s under my bed,”

“Bucky,”

“What?”

“Tell me you’re joking,”

“Of course I’m-“

“Your eyebrow is twitching, I thought you were supposed to be some kind of super spy, doesn’t that involve lying?” The phone started ringing at that moment and Steve and Bucky exchanged glances, “If that’s Stark I’m not making any more lasagne for a month,” One look into Bucky’s devastated eyes and Steve knew he’d relent but Bucky didn’t need to know that.

“This is Steve,” Steve listened to whoever was on the other end for a moment before replying, “Yes sir,” His cheeks flared red and Bucky spared a moment to wonder why he was blushing, “No sir, no, we’re, ah, eating dinner,” Steve cleared his throat, eyes flickering up to Bucky. _Ok_ , Bucky thought, _now I’m intrigued_. “Within the hour, Sir,” Steve sighed as he hung up.

“Got a mission, you alright with the pots?”

“Aww man we were gonna watch Brave and then come up with bow and arrow related jokes for Barton!” Bucky pouted and stood, heading for his bedroom. Steve stared after him, confused, until Bucky emerged again and tossed Tony’s Mark 4 head at Steve.

“Stark might need this,” Bucky smirked, leaning back against the wall as he watched Steve stare down at the metal head.

“This is on you,” Steve warned, “After the last prank war you’d think you’d have learned, but I’m staying out of this.”

“You say that now…” Bucky laughed, “Go get ‘em stud,”

“You’re not even curious as to what’s going off?”

“I can probably turn on the TV and find ten channels worth of stuff, also I know you’re gonna tell me before you leave so I don’t need to ask,”

“Doom is trying to destroy the city again,”

“Didn’t he try that last week?”

“Tried and failed, he just doesn’t know when to quit I guess,” Steve laughed and clasped Bucky’s shoulder as he passed, “Should take us no more than an hour or two, though Bruce is out of town so we’ll see,” He changed in his bedroom, leaving the cowl off until he left the house.

“Bye,” Bucky turned and watched Steve leave. He pottered around the apartment for about ten minutes, trying to convince himself that not only would Steve be fine without him he’d do better without him. There was one thing Bucky had noticed since they’d been back and it was that Steve’s attention was on him almost 100% of the time. Bucky didn’t mind that, exactly, but it wasn’t ideal for a battle field. Steve was part of a team and they had to work as a team. They’d managed it in the commandos but after losing Bucky again he doubted Steve would cope as well this time around.

On top of that Hydra was still around. The invasion a few months back had actually blown up one of their bases but just because it was the only base SHEILD knew about didn’t mean it was the only base in the world and so Bucky was a little hesitant to put himself in the limelight. Wearing a mask wouldn’t cut it with Hydra, they’d recognise the tech of his arm as soon as they saw it and they’d target him. Bucky wouldn’t’ let Steve get caught in the cross fire, even though Steve told him he didn’t mind. He’d missed out on 70 years of protecting his best friend, even if Steve had been on ice for the vast, vast majority of those years. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

So he squashed down the niggling voice inside of him that said, _you know, I kind of would like to be a superhero_ and turned on the news.

Half an hour later and Bucky was sat on the couch, metal hand fisted in his jeans tearing at the fabric as he watched Steve disappear under a crumbling building.

_So much for protecting him_ , the voice whispered inside his head as the highest floor of the building crashed into the ground. The first thing Bucky did was panic.

The second thing he did was throw up.


	5. -insert witty chapter title here-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise I'm switching tense here, and also mood but I'm just writing what comes into my head so err i hope you didn't come into this with high exceptions... expected story length: 7 chapters but that may increase if i feel like it.

Bucky does not remember the journey between their apartment and the last known location of Captain America. He does not remember ripping Doombots to shreds. He doesn’t remember reverting back into the Winter Soldier.

He does remember waking up.

The world is grey. A lifeless husk of reality that pulls at him, tugs at him, waits for him to snap. He is staring at the stars and they are staring back. It takes a minute to put things in a time line, to actually look around. There is smoke, flames still licking at the floor, seeping through the cracks in the rubble.

He is standing on top of the exact building Steve had been in when it collapsed. His heart jerks in his chest and for a second the only thing he can think is…what if he’s standing on his best friend right now? What if under the rubble at his feet Steve is a ghost, a shell, an empty body? He stares down as if Hydra has implanted x-ray vision into his eyes. He imagines he can see down, down, down into the impossible.

Someone is saying something, talking to him, expecting him to listen.

Bucky does not listen.

He moves off of the rubble, starts pulling at the rocks and chunks of metal in his way, carving an entrance into Steve’s tomb with his metal arm.

“It’s like a pyramid,” He whispers, staring listlessly at the stone for a second.

“Bucky.”

Someone is insistent. He half turns and the man with the wings is there, watching him as cautiously as you would watch a shark that circles you in the water. The man’s hand is on his gun.

“Do you know who I am?” The man edges closer, as relaxed as he can force himself to be.

Bucky goes back to digging through rocks.

Part of him tunes into the conversation going on behind him, though he can’t really dredge up the will to care about what they say.

“He’s unresponsive. Going into shock, I think. It might have forced him back into the Winter Soldier’s persona though he doesn’t seem violent,”

“Oh,” He thinks he recognises Natalia’s voice, “He’s violent alright. Don’t get too close,”

It’s a good warning, but then Natalia always was the smart one.

“What do we do?”

“What can we do?” Natalia sighs and shifts slightly. He watches his out of the corner of his eye.

“Something. There has to be something. We should have planned for this, Steve should have-“

“What? Left a will? And to my loved ones I give my best friend?”

“Well, no, I mean. This is just-“

“I know,” Natalia sounds softer again, and there was a rustle like someone was hugging though the Natalia he knew didn’t hug.

“Has anyone found Steve?”

Finally, a question he cares about.

“No,”

Bucky lets out a choked off growl, knees giving way for a second before he stands up straighter, moves faster. The Winter Soldier does not crumble, he thinks to himself, Bucky Barnes would dissolve but the Winter Soldier is a ghost and therefore cannot break.

He is unaware of how long he works. Tirelessly pawing through rubble, finding bodies, bits of bodies, breath catching in his throat until he realises they are not Steve, have never been Steve and then he moves on, tossing them aside of leaving them for someone else to deal with. Someone passes him water and he drinks, an apple and he eats but he does not sleep and he does not leave. For the first time in a long time he remembers what it feels like to have a mission, to have energy surging in his blood, pushing him on and on and on until his nails are ripped, fingers bleeding.

He is aware, in a vague sense, that there are people watching him. His friends, concerned and helping as best they can when he’ll barely let them get close enough. He knows also that there are other people to rescue, people who have more chance of being alive than Steve has. He recognises the footfalls of the Iron Man suit and something in his chest tenses. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it because he knows what Tony is going to say.

“They found a body,”

Bucky’s life crumbles as easy as the building had, right in front of his eyes. He passes out again, as dead to the world as his best friend was.

When he wakes up he’s in a hospital room. His flesh and blood hand is bound with cotton and medical tape, covering half mangled finger tips he imagines. He isn’t attached to an IV, there is no call button on his bedside table and no machines to throw through the window. One glance tells him it’s bullet proof. There is a mirror that he immediately recognises as two-way, and a plastic bottle of water, uncapped, on a table near the door. It smells like antiseptic, the air is too dry and his skin prickles with unease.

The door opens and Nick Fury walks in.

“Where is he?” Bucky demands, swivelling so he’s ready to jump from the bed, if he needs to, without being tangled in sheets.

“Calm down,”

“I want to see his body,”

Fury pauses and stares at him. “Alright,” He sighs, motioning for Bucky to stand. It isn’t until the one shred of hope in his heart shrivels and dies that Bucky realises he’d been half hoping for Fury to laugh at him. Thinking maybe, just maybe, Steve would come bounding through the door, as chastising as ever as he sighed over the state of Bucky’s hand.  Swallowing sharply, he follows Fury.

Three months, he’d been allowed. Three months to get used to having Steve around, for the hole in his chest to close a little more each day before being ripped open again. The agony of becoming the Winter Soldier was almost nothing to becoming Bucky without Steve.


	6. in which fury was trying to help. really. he was.

Fury doesn’t take him to another room in the hospital.

He takes him to a car. The car takes him to Stark tower and the elevator takes him up to the floor below Tony’s penthouse. The noise of New York sends his ears ringing and it’s brighter than he remembers real life to be. He has to pause for a second, because he’s never been here without Steve before and the grief wells up again, stinging at his eyes. Fingernails sink into the skin of his human hand and the metal of his other creaks dangerously. He stops when he draws blood, takes a breath. Breathes in all the oxygen in the room until he’s sure he won’t cry.

Tony is waiting for them, Natalia and Agent Hill by his side. There are glass sliding doors behind them looking onto a white room. They’re talking in hushed voices, glancing around every few seconds to make sure they aren’t being spied on. Natalia spots him first, of course, and she straightens, widens her stance as if he’s about to rush her. He notices Hill’s hand twitch towards the holster at her hip and raises an eyebrow.

Ultimately though, he feels to cold inside to make a comment. He just wants to see Steve one last time and then he’s finished. He survived after leaving Hydra, what feels like a thousand years ago now, mostly because he wanted to get to the truth. When he found the truth, when he remembered Steve and the Howling Commandos and the train he settled into an uneasy peace with himself. He’d stick around, try and forge a place for himself because that’s what Steve would have wanted. He drove that plane into the ice so that millions of people could live and Bucky wasn’t going to just throw that away.

But finding Steve again, finding a home again… it wasn’t like before the war, when they had been BuckyandSteve. They had become, somehow, BuckySteve. No gap, no and, just the two of them, even if Bucky didn’t remember everything, even if he sometimes freaked out for no reason, or if Steve had to wake him from the nightmares. He knows instinctively that there had been something growing there. And if his heart wasn’t already aching too hard for his body to comprehend he’d dwell on it longer, figure out exactly where it was they had been heading with the lingering stares and intimate smiles.

He remembers, for a second, Romeo and Juliet. Steve had commented once that it was one of the greatest love stories. Bucky hadn’t had the heart to tell him it wasn’t about love, it was about loss, and tragedy and the foolishness of the young. He thinks about that, as the room ahead grows closer, about how maybe he’ll ask them to bury him with Steve. It was worth a shot after all they’d been through.

“It's been a week since you were in hospital and I actually took that time to do research and I figured out the banana thing,” Tony informs him as Fury brings them to a stop in front of the doors. Bucky barely spares him a glance, his eyes on that white room. “It’s interesting actually, you see-“

“Shut up,”

“Hey now-“ Tony protested, hands on hips.

“You think I care about some stupid fruit? Steve is dead, Stark, just like Howard and Peggy and everyone else I know and I’m alone again and I swear if the next words out of your mouth aren’t I’m sorry I let Steve die I swear I will kill you,” The Winter Soldier doesn’t make threats lightly and even if Tony doesn’t believe him Natalia side steps so she’s between them. Tony is busy staring between Fury and Bucky, brow furrowed.

“Are you kidding me?” He demands, “Fury, fucking hell,”

“You didn’t tell him,” Hill covers her eyes with a hand for a split second before turning and pressing her hand against the panel next to the door. He hadn’t noticed it before, Natalia had been standing in the way, but he watches now, caught between uncertainty and raging griefangerhatred. The wall beeps and Bucky heaves JARVIS through the ceiling.

“You are authorised, Agent Hill,”

“Thank you JARVIS,” Hill turns back to look at him as the doors slide open.

“Steve isn’t dead,” Natalia murmurs, stepping closer and half reaching out a hand like she wants to reassure him. Bucky jolts back, flinching away and looking between them all, backing up a few steps.

“He won’t believe you,” Fury sighs, “You think I’d keep him in the dark to upset him? Hell no, I knew that unless he had proof he wouldn’t listen, he’d break out and do god knows how much damage trying to get to the body,”

“You said you’d found a body,” Bucky blurts, hands clenched as his heart starts beating in his ears, “You _said_ ,”

“We brought him back,” Fury said, face blank of any emotion. It doesn’t escape Bucky’s notice that Tony doesn’t look happy, though if Steve really is alive…

“Yeah still not clear on the details of that one,” Tony narrows his eyes, “He wasn’t breathing when I got to him and he’d been out of the rubble for at least five minutes by then,” Fury looks uneasy for all of two seconds. He makes eye contact with Stark, opens his mouth like he’s going to continue this casual conversation and Bucky snaps.

“Where is he?” Bucky demands. He’s stood and watched them argue long enough and he just wants to see Steve, wants to know for himself that he’s alive and healthy and-

“He isn’t conscious,” Hill’s hand is still on the panel and so the door is still open, “Now can we get a move on my wrist is starting to ache,” She glanced at Tony, “You make one joke and I’ll break your kneecap, see how well you fly with the use of only one leg,”

Bucky ignores them and darts forward through the door. It’s a big room, the short corridor-like space he finds himself in branches out to both sides. Steve’s bed is to the right. Bucky freezes, a wall in the middle of the floor. There’s a choked whining sound and it takes Bucky a second to realise it’s coming from his own mouth.

Because Steve is there, in the flesh and blood (albeit looking very pale and very fragile) and Bucky can’t help but rush forward, once he regains the use of his legs, to grab Steve, to hug him. Before he can take more than two steps Natalia is in front of him.

“I like you Natalia,” He says, “But don’t get in my way or you’ll regret it,”

“You’re a great assassin,” Natalia nods, red hair falling around her face as she locks her feet into place, “But you make really bad threats. No creativity,” Bucky snarls and half lunges. Natalia has him in a choke hold before he can put his hands on her, “You’re rusty, old friend.”

“Let me go,” His metal hand closes over her wrist, twisting until he feels bones start to give way.

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice is a croak, a weak plea barely audible but Bucky moves immediately. He drops Natasha like she’s on fire and within a second he’s by Steve’s bed, taking his hand carefully and looking down at him. The damage is extensive. Even with the super soldier serum Steve’s entire face is a bruise. His left eye is swollen shut, there’s a long cut that runs the length of his jaw and cheek and his arm is in a sling.

“I had ‘em by the ropes,” Steve breathes and Bucky makes a rather embarrassing sound, caught between laughing, crying and shouting loudly in Russian.

“Sure you did pal,” He whispers, leaning closer as if Steve will be pulled away from him any second. He’s aware of someone clearing their throat behind him but he blocks it out so that the only sound he hears is Steve’s breathing. He isn’t a 100% sure that he isn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, or that he’d never left Hydra and this was some form of brain washing technique, but for now Steve was there and everything was ok. He’d ignore the niggling feeling in the back of his mind that kept trying to remind him of Tony’s suspicion, of Natalia’s hesitance to let Bucky close and Fury’s avoidance. There was something going on and eventually he’d find out what, but for now this was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might get what i'm implying at the end of this chapter...let me know in the comments if you do. The only hint i'll give you is that it has to do with Steve's recovery and also i may not be sticking to canon time lines i really cant remember but hey i dont care that much. anyhow, this chapter is dedicated to the person who reviewed the last chapter and who i told not to give up hope, if you're reading this you know who you are.


	7. eaves dropping is for losers

Bucky has never been one to eavesdrop.

No, he has more class that that.

He ‘gathers intelligence’ (it’s totally different, really)

And if that intelligence happens to be a great recipe for chocolate chip pancakes, well, it’s just his duty to learn it. But more often than not the information is important (not that he’s saying chocolate chip pancakes aren’t important because that would be a lie) and so when he sees Tony practically frog marching Fury into a room across the hall from Steve’s bed he thinks two things.

Number one, _either they’re going to have some pretty kinky sex or secrets are being spilled_.

Number two, _the next time Steve tells me I’m being paranoid for carrying spy tech I’m gonna laugh in his face._

He leaves Steve’s room for the first time in days, checking to make sure his friend is asleep and that there’s a cup of water in easy reaching distance, before slipping out of the door and putting his assassin training to good use. He fixes a tiny ear piece in place and then sticks a tiny bud on the round glass window, fast enough that he’s pretty sure the occupants wouldn’t notice.

He moves back to Steve’s room then, knowing he’ll probably have been caught on camera and hoping that no one was watching that particular screen at the time. He only needs a few moments worth of conversation anyway, just so he knows if they’re talking about Steve.

He has a bad feeling that they are.

“What did you do?”

“Stark, you’re taking this paranoia a little far don’t you think?” Fury’s sigh gusts over the ear piece.

“No, no I do not think,” There’s a choked laugh, “I saw his body Fury, I saw his…his skull,” There is silence for a moment, “I don’t care what kind of super serum you have no one comes back from that,”

“Phil did,”

“Yeah,” Tony snorted and Bucky could imagine him leaning against a wall and using all of the power in his cynical state to pin Fury to the spot, though considering Fury’s background in spy work Bucky thinks it’s kind of unlikely he’ll be that affected. “Phil Coulson. How is our friend? The friend you haven’t let us see, the friend who, when searched for through your secure files, is way too clean to be in this business. I know there’s something in that file that I can’t get to yet,”

“You need to learn when to stop,” Fury says, voice so quiet Bucky actually has to strain to listen, “If you keep digging, if Steve hears any of this, if Coulson hears… Stark you need to learn when to leave well enough alone. They’re both fixed, isn’t that enough?”

“No, because you don’t fix people.” Stark slams something against a table, “What is Tahiti? Why is it the only thing I can find?”

“Goodbye Stark,”

Bucky removes the ear piece and drops it into his pocket as Fury walks out, followed by an aggressively stomping Tony. Stark pauses as he leaves the room, catching the door and studying it for a second before reaching out and plucking the listening device from the glass. Bucky winces; sure that Stark will shout Fury back and he’ll have even less time to think of a usable excuse. He doesn’t though. He turns and looks straight at Bucky before using his security clearance to enter Steve’s room.

“If you’re going to shout-“

“I’m not,” Stark shrugs, “Hey I’ve hacked them enough to know it’d be hypocritical of me to judge. Not that that’s really stopped me before but…I’m just as curious as you,”

“Curious isn’t the word I’d use. Worried. Concerned. Angry, maybe. There are two sides of this. The first is that Steve is alive and I’m never going to regret that, not matter what we find. Second is that they’re keeping secrets and these secrets have something to do with Steve and so I’m going to find out what they are before they can be used against us.”

“You’re aware that us include the rest of the Avengers right? We’re behind you on this,” Tony half fell into the only other chair in the room, staring across at Steve. “What a sleeping beauty,”

“He prefers Tiana,” Bucky snorts, “Don’t tell him I said that,”

“What, he isn’t embarrassed is he? He got something against Disney?”

“No, he loves it, thinks it’s great that little girls have these role models. He’s not exactly fond of the lack of diversity but he loves all of the films,” Bucky struggles with the urge to hold his best friends hand, stroke his thumb across Steve’s skin.

“Why do I have to keep it a secret then?”

“No big reason, just…“ Bucky doesn’t know how to put it in words. How to explain, without feeling soppy, that there are some things he kind of want to keep between himself and Steve, and Disney is kind of one of those things. If Stark mentions Tiana and the Princess and the Frog Steve is going to make them all watch it and Bucky will have to share the happiness on Steve’s face. He isn’t ready for that yet.

He needs to change the subject, “So what are we going to do about Fury and, what was it? Tahiti?” _Subtle_ , he thinks to himself as Tony raises an eyebrow.

“We do what we do best,” Tony let the princess thing go for the moment, “We dig, we hack and we listen,”

“Master plan,” Bucky rubs at his eyes with a sigh, “When do we start?”

“As we speak Jarvis is running more scans on all of the files I have access to and some files I don’t. We’ll know what he knows within a few hours. Until then we wait.”

_That’s the thing_ , Bucky thinks, they never tell you when you sign up for the excitement of herodom. Most of it is just waiting and the bits that aren’t generally involve hospitals _and_ waiting with the added joy of bruises. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who have never watched agents of shield (why exactly have you not watched agents of shield its kickass get with the program) won't understand the reference to tahiti. Those of you who have watched it probably realise by now and also know that im probably screwing with the time line of when tahiti became a thing but im doing it for reasons so my creative license excuses that. IF YOU PLAN ON WATCHING AGENTS OF SHIELD AT ANY POINT THE NEXT FEW CHAPTERS MAY BECOME KIND OF SPOILERISH FOR YOU....so watch it as soon as possible if you plan to continue reading :) and i hope you do continue reading, i promise im going somewhere with this.


	8. curiosity did not kill the cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the time line it's been about a month since the last chapter. Sam has (through unexplained) circumstances become part of Steve's team as an Avenger and all Avengers, apart from Steve, are in on the whole research thing Tony and Bucky have going on in this chapter. Fury, Maria Hill and Coulson obviously do not know. I know this is a bit rushed and I should have built up more but at this point I just want to finish the story so I can stop feeling guilty and focus on passing my degree!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few months since I updated this and my only excuses are a lack of a muse and University work. So, if any of you are still hanging around to read this, I'm really sorry. I am committed to finishing this, 100% but because of university and IRL things It's going to be a bit rushed, two more chapters after this one hopefully, and then it's over. 
> 
> On another note, this has now officially stepped into Big Spoilers for Agents of Shield, I'll add that to the tags. I got a lot of info from the Marvel/Agents of Shield Wiki because it's been a while since I watched season 1. (Season two is awesome though, is anyone else getting bisexual Fitz vibes??)

You know the saying, “Curiosity killed the cat,”?

Bucky doesn’t like that saying. Bucky prefers “Curiosity brings level 10 data the cat isn’t supposed to be able to access and then the cat takes revenge on everyone who…” ok so the saying gets a little long when Bucky gets his hands on it.

Either way no cats were harmed in the making of his idioms. There was that pigeon. And the gecko that one time. Not relevant right now though, Bucky shakes his head and sighs, tapping a metal finger against the desk as he leans over Stark’s shoulder.

“Can a man not hack in peace?” Tony mutters, darting a resentful look at Bucky’s fingers.

“Not when Steve is involved,”

“Of course,” Tony rolls his eyes and focuses on the screen again.

“Do you have it yet?”

“No,”

Five minutes pass.

“Do you have it yet?”

“Wha-? No!”

The clock ticks in the corner of the room.

“Do you-“

“You’re literally staring at the same screen as me!” Tony throws his hands in the air and Bucky resists the left over impulse to break a wrist or two, “If I had it don’t you think you’d know?”

“Focus,” Bucky prods him in the shoulder and ignores the resentful glare he gets in return.

Five minutes pass.

“Do you-“

“I’ve found it!”

Bucky half-slips off of the desk, shoulder jarring awkwardly as he rights himself and leans over to look.

“What does it say?”

“Jarvis!”

“Yes Sir,”

“Scan all data available on Project: Tahiti onto the third tablet on the desk. Also, espresso me up-“

Sam takes that moment to walk in with a coffee cup.

“Never mind the newest member to the crew brought me a present,” Tony makes grabby hands at an unimpressed Sam.

“Please, this is mine. Find your own caffeine boost,”

“Can we please get back to the issue at hand?” Bucky motions to the computer screens.

“You found something, finally?” Sam moves closer, peering over at the closest screen with a small frown. They’d been looking into this for a month now, and each rabbit hole they were lead down brought them to five more, each deeper than the last.

“We hit the jackpot.” Tony nods and gestures at the table full of tablets, “It’s all on the latest piece of Stark tech, unhackable, untraceable and with new and improved Angry Birds. No, the other one” Tony directs Sam’s hand.

“So what does it say?” Bucky prods again, a little harder this time. Sam has already grabbed the tablet off of the table but Bucky is waiting for the news from Stark himself.

“What we thought, basically. A super-secret programme for a super-secret team in a super-secret location with a super-secret “cure all ails” type medicine. Of course, I had already figured out the location because I’m awesome like that but now we have a bit more information. Coulson was involved, firstly, before his- before we became a proper team.”

“And?”

“I don’t know the source of the… whatever it is. Medicine. Cure. Potion. Whatever.” Tony shakes his head slightly, “I just know what it does. It heals people. Specifically it heals people in a place called the ’Guest House,’” he glances at Bucky for a second. “There’s video footage,” He waves a hand and a YouTube-esque screen appears entitled “StarkTube.” It hovers about an inch away from the actual screen on the computer.

“Play it,” When Stark hesitates Bucky leans over and shoves a finger at the play button on the keyboard, hoping it works. It does. It takes approximately a minute for Bucky to wish it hadn’t.

Six patients, not including Coulson himself. Six people, SHIELD agents, dying. Each volunteered, each was administered the serum, GH-325. Each agent slowly, then all at once, losing control, slipping into fits of hysteria, catatonia, aphasia and psychosis.

“They gave this to Steve?” Bucky feels slightly ill.

“They gave this to Steve,” Sam confirms, drawing their attention to the tablet he’d been examining before the video began. “They gave it to Coulson. Six other people. They had to _erase_ their memories. It was the only thing keeping them from dying,” Sam purses his lips, “This Guest House, you say you know where it is?”

Tony nods, “I found the location yesterday, I didn’t tell you,” He glances at Bucky specifically, “Because you’re too emotionally invested right now. You’d run off on your own and get yourself caught, killed or a combination of the two,”

“Which is why I would have preferred it if you could have just let things be,” They turn as one to face Fury, who is living up to his name if the way that he looks at them is anything to go by. “But no, you just have to dig. Maybe you should put the shovels down for a moment and listen to someone who actually knows more about this than you.”

“We wouldn’t have had to dig anything if you’d have just told us what was going on,” Tony points out, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

Bucky is still vibrating with anger. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just stares at Fury with, well, _fury_.

“You need to stop,”

Sam and Tony exchange glances.

“Well, I mean,” A slow smile spreads across Tony’s face, “That would have been easier if Natasha and Clint weren’t heading back from the Guest House as we speak.”

“What.” Fury and Bucky speak at the same time.

“I never said the two master assassins among us were too emotionally invested. Natasha was the first person I told about this, she and Hawk left last night to stake the place out,” Tony’s phone beeped at that precise moment, “And oh look. They’re back.”


End file.
